Help a journalist or watchdog follow the money through public records.
Tech partner
The picture is in the public record — scattered across thousands of filings nobody has time to read.
Shell companies, offshore structures, and opaque financial reporting hide where money actually flows — and the journalists and watchdogs whose job is to follow it must piece the picture together from thousands of public filings by hand. A search engine — or an LLM with one — answers the questions you already know to ask. Investigations turn on the questions nobody asked: the name variant in another registry, the subsidiary that quietly vanished from this year's filing, the director shared with a company three hops away.
Sep 1 26’
Challenge start
Build (31 days left)
Oct 1 26’
Deadline & Winners
What to build
Your Mission
Build an AI-powered solution that helps a journalist or watchdog follow the money through public records.
Your solution should trace corporate networks — subsidiaries, shared directors, related-party transactions — as a persistent, growing picture, not a one-shot answer. The bar: if a chat search engine can produce your output, you haven't built the thing. The hard parts are what one-shot search can't do — resolving the same entity across name variants, transliterations, and jurisdictions; catching contradictions and omissions across filings and years (a subsidiary quietly disappearing from an exhibit list is a lead); and making every connection publishable, cited to its source document. How you solve it is up to you. Exa gives you verified connections from filings and news; the rest is yours.
How to build
Master the Challenge.
Scope
What Success Looks Like
There is no single right solution. You could take the problem in many directions — pick a specific user, a clear decision, and make that experience work well.
Tip:
Don't try to solve the whole problem at once. Pick a specific investigation type, filing category, or corporate structure, then make that experience work well.
Support:
Discord for Q&A.Requirements
Technical Challenge
Think about how your solution will resolve one real-world entity across name variants and registries, build a corporate network that persists and grows as new filings land, detect contradictions and omissions between filings, years, and public claims, and attach a source document to every connection so a journalist can publish from it. These are opportunities to explore, not requirements you need to satisfy all at once.
Tip:
Your solution doesn’t need to be production-ready. We welcome everything from early prototypes to fully working implementations and ambitious technical explorations.
Support:
Discord.
Use of tech
Recommended Tools
Exa provides a web retrieval layer that might be useful here. Exa's `financial report` category (SEC filings, earnings reports) combined with Websets can trace corporate networks — subsidiaries, shared directors, related-party transactions, and inconsistencies between filings and public claims — with criteria verification confirming each connection, and Monitors watching for new filings. Whether Exa fits your solution is up to you.
Tip:
Whether or not you use Exa in your solution is entirely up to you.
Resources:
- Exa API / SDK to getting started
- Exa documentation for search and retrieval
- Examples and implementation patterns
- Exa.ai Discord channel for technical questions
Meet your mentors
Get a guidance from industry professionals.
Gain invaluable insights and support from seasoned experts who are passionate about driving positive change. Our mentors bring years of experience in tackling complex challenges, ready to share their knowledge and help you make a meaningful impact.
Sep 1 26’
Challenge start
Build (31 days left)
Oct 1 26’
Deadline & Winners
Jury Panel
Put your solution in front of hiring managers.
Receive valuable feedback and insights from hiring managers and industry experts.
Community recognition
Winner
The winning project will be featured on Drawerrr’s Winners page and receive support, and exposure to take the idea further.
Community recognition
Finalists
The two finalist projects will be featured on Drawerrr’s Finalists page and receive support to continue developing their ideas.
If you choose Exa as part of your tech stack, the winner and two finalists will receive Exa.ai credits, exposure through Exa’s developer community, and technical support to help develop their projects further.
Sep 1 26’
Challenge start
Build (31 days left)
Oct 1 26’
Deadline & Winners
FAQ
Everything you need to know about participating.
Who can participate?
Is there a participation fee?
How to get started?
- Create an account.
- Choose a challenge you would like to work on.
- Follow guides to solve the problem (solo or in a team).
- Submit your solution.
- Get the feedback from sustainability experts and results at the beginning of the each month.
Is there any deadlines?
Can I participate as part of a team?
How to obtain assistance from mentors?
Who will be evaluating submissions?
Are there any awards for the winners?
Can participants apply multiple times?
What happens after the challenge?
After challenge
Take it to the next level.
The Challenge graduates get the opportunity to connect with grant providers and organizations looking to pilot projects and take them to the next level.